


The Most Important Question in the World

by nerdprincess73



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1349419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdprincess73/pseuds/nerdprincess73
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hamish Watson's father is dying and he doesn't yet know the most important question in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Important Question in the World

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing a proposal scene for a WIP and the idea of the inscription came to me. Then this happened. 
> 
>  
> 
> Characters do not belong to me (except maybe Hamish?).

Hamish Watson hurried along the hall of the home hoping that he wasn’t too late. He’d gotten a sinking feeling in his gut, and he feared that his father had finally gone.

The head nurse saw him and smiled.

“Is he…”

“Still around,” she said. “But…”

“I know. It won’t be long,” Hamish said, sighing. “I’m not surprised in the least. Just that he’s made it this long.”

She smiled sadly. “Conditions like his are usually highly treatable. Could nothing have been done?”

Hamish shook his head. “My parents were married for thirty years,” he said. “And he never expected to outlive Papa. Ever. And I expect if it weren’t for me… he wouldn’t have outlived him by much.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say.”

“You never saw them together,” Hamish said, pulling out his wallet. It was an antiquated habit to carry photos there, but Papa had, and Father had, and there was no better place to carry them. He pulled out a photo of the pair of them, arms around one another. “Papa was his whole world. Even after they adopted me. Still is, really.” He showed her a photo.

She nodded. “They seem very happy.”

“I should go see him,” he said. He headed toward the room where his father lay.

The old man appeared to be sleeping when he entered, and he settled on the edge of the bed.

“Hamish. You weren’t going to visit,” his father said, opening his eyes. They were still sharp enough to see what others could not.

“No, I wasn’t,” Hamish admitted. “But I got the feeling that if I came tomorrow, you might not be here.”

The old man smiled. “You’re just like him, you know,” he said. “I’m glad the world didn’t lose that when he went.” He turned his wedding ring on his finger. It was old, worn, but shone as well as it had the day he’d first put it on.

“I always thought I was more like you,” Hamish said.

His father shook his head. “No. You’ve learned to be like me. But you were just like him from the moment I laid eyes on you. I had Mycroft hold him up in traffic so I could name you. He was going to call you William. For me,” he said. “But when I saw you, when I held you that first time, you were already so much like him.” He smiled. “He threatened to kill me. He always hated his middle name. Wouldn’t tell me. I had to find his birth certificate to find it out.”

“He never said,” Hamish said, smiling.

“Hamish, I’m dying.”

He took his father’s hands. “Sherlock Holmes, that is why I’m here,” he said.

Sherlock patted his son’s hand. “Not long now.” He twisted his wedding ring again. “Do you think there’s something on the other side? I never did. Yet… All I do now is hope. That there’s something beyond. Where he is. That he’s waiting for me. That he’ll ask me one more time.”

Hamish sighed. “I don’t know, Father,” he said. “With all the times you’ve died, wouldn’t you know?”

Sherlock shook his head sadly. “There was nothing for me there before now. Nothing that mattered so much. No one who would be waiting for me.” He worked his ring off his finger, past knuckles grown large from age and arthritis and the damage of a lifetime as adventure-filled as his had been. He smiled as he read the inscription, his once sharp eyes now dulled with time. “The words that started it all,” he said quietly. He looked at his son. “I’ve been… a terrible father."

“You’ve been wonderful,” Hamish said. “I couldn’t have asked for better parents than you and Papa.”

“John was wonderful,” Sherlock said. “He loved you more than anything. Me… I was jealous of the attention he gave you. I experimented with you, despite John’s rules. Nothing dangerous, mind. He really would have killed me then. And… I don’t know that I’ve loved you as much as I do him.”

Hamish pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Father, you love me just as much,” he said. “I know you do. Or you would have gone with him. I’ve always known it. All my life. And even if you hadn’t loved me as much as him… you love him more than you value your own life. Certainly proved that enough times. And if you love me half as much as you love him… well, that’s more than enough for me.”

“You’re just like him, you know. Favored me all your life, yet you turn out just like him,” Sherlock said. “Of course you have. My mind and all the best of him. His heart. And his strength… Mycroft told me when I was young that… sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side. He was wrong. He was so wrong. John proved that. Again and again.”

Sherlock pressed the ring into his son’s hand. “These words, Hamish. They are to be on my gravestone. It’s in the files as well, but I needed to tell you. I asked him this very question before our first case together. He asked me this when he proposed… they are the words that began it all. And they must be the end as well.”

Hamish wrapped his hands around his father’s. “I understand,” he said.

Sherlock shook his head. “You don’t. Not yet. But you will,” he said. “And that’s enough.”

Hamish nodded, deciding not to argue. “All right. You’ve signed all the papers you needed to?” he asked. “To make sure that when it happens, that’s it?” His father nodded tiredly. “Good. Then we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“You’re worrying anyway,” Sherlock said.

“Course I am. You’re my dad,” Hamish said. “And I’m far too young for you to die. But it’s quite all right. I’ve got Greg and Mycroft. I’ve got my cousins. Wonderful friends and family. I’ll be all right.”

“I’m being selfish again,” Sherlock said. “I could’ve gotten treatment. Could have stuck around for grandchildren.”

Hamish shook his head again. “Daddy, you are… the biggest arse any man could ever know,” he said. “But you need to be with him. Even if it’s just in the abstract sense of no longer existing, and doing that together.”

Sherlock smiled his wrinkled smile. “You haven’t called me that in years,” he said.

“Yes, well I was informed it was a ridiculous thing to call one’s father past the age of four,” Hamish said. “Though I’m inclined to disagree.”

“I have missed it.” He held his son’s hand. “John and I never discussed what to do with our rings,” he said.

“I have Papa’s,” Hamish said, pulling a chain out from under his collar. The band sat at the lowest point on the chain. “Though I’ve never understood the inscription.”

Sherlock smiled. “That was his answer.” He took a slow breath. “You’d think I’d be used to it by now,” he said. “How much this part hurts. Dying. I’ve only done it a couple times, but I still wasn’t expecting it to hurt so much.”

Hamish closed his eyes for a moment. “Then it’s time, I think,” he said. “Don’t you?”

Sherlock nodded slowly and he rested his head back. “It is time. Hamish, I love you,” he said. “I love you so much.”

Hamish smiled. “I love you too, Daddy.”

Neither spoke another word to the other. The door didn’t open once.

Time passed. And at some point, Sherlock stopped.

 

Hamish didn’t think to look at the inscription on the ring until he got home.

_Do you want to see some more?_

“Yeah, Dad. I do.” The gold band clinked against its mate as it found its new home.


End file.
